Judicial and Bar Council: A Malignant Tumor That Must Be Excised

       You have heard it. Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno would not add up any candidate to its short-list  of Supreme Court Justice aspirants. This is a blatant usurpation of the appointing power which the constitution vests in the President and placed the error of such appointment to a group of persons who are not accountable to the people, the  Judicial and Bar Council (JBC).  The council was envisioned to broker the well-intentioned aspirants to the judiciary by going into the labyrinth of the judicial gauntlet as way of recruiting the cream of the legal profession.

 

       The concept of screening judicial appointees through the JBC to ensure that only the good and the most fit are commissioned to serve is a myth.   After 22 years of its existence, the JBC had only succeeded in recruiting the most inept and the most corrupt in the judiciary.  You have only to look for the fund diversion of the Supreme Court which had been the subject of an impeachment in the House against its previous Chief, Hilario Davide, Jr., or the Meralco-GSIS row which resulted in a couple of heads rolling in the bastion that is supposed to be the stellar for dispensing justice, to find out that the JBC was an abject failure.

       The inability of the JBC to address the very issue it was envisioned to perform argues for its abolition. Like a malignant tumor, it has to be excised  from the body and rid its atrophied part from metastasizing.  The good intention in recruiting only the wise and the honorable in the judiciary is not assured by putting it in the hands of people who by nature belongs to  the same corrupt body politics in the approximation of a mob organization where enlistment of new members must be of the same mold and orientation of the people who recruited them.  New members of the judiciary must symbolically kiss the hand of the Mafioso ring leader and pledge allegiance to the preservation of the organization’s culture of corruption. Senator Miriam Santiago had put it more succinctly when she refused to subject herself from this hand-kissing ritual known as “JBC job interview” and thereby forfeited her opportunity to become justice of the Supreme Court, an entity she curtly described, the “old boy’s club”.

        If one examines the composition of the JBC, one would not fail to notice that it is a separate power enclave of the Supreme Court where the voice of the Chief Justice reigns supreme.  The Chief’s latest pronouncement that no more candidates for the Supreme Court coming from the President will be added to its “short-list”,  highlights this point. The JBC is a constitutional fiat which is  anathema to constitutional government.  The power to appoint justices and judges of inferior courts belongs exclusively to the President.  Providing her with a “short-list” from whom she can appoint a justice of the Supreme Court effectively short-circuited this power of appointment.  The JBC arrogates a power never intended by the framers of the constitution.

          Under the old set-up, the Commission on Appointment in Congress cannot provide the President a “short-list” from which she can appoint a justice of the Supreme Court and judges of inferior courts.  Congress is free to reject whoever is submitted by the President for confirmation but it is never allowed to determine which candidate the President must submit to Congress for confirmation.

       And while Congress can put a monkey-wrench on the appointment of the President for justices and judges, such behavior is tolerable under the principle of “check and balance” and the concept of accountability  enshrined in the constitution.  Members of congress who are stubborn and unreasonable in putting partisan politics over the common good are directly responsible to the people comes election in the same way that the President is held accountable for appointment of corrupt government officials and for her own corruption.  This  concept of accountability is lost on the JBC  because its members do not seek the mandate from the people during elections  and yet it exercises a tremendous power than can even hold the President’s appointment power hostage by sheer arrogance.  Make no mistake about it.  No group of particular government functionaries enjoy moral superiority than others.  George Washington makes a wise counsel: “ the love for power, and the pronness to abuse it predominates in every human heart”.

     The endemic corruption in the judiciary is never blamed on the JBC  and if ever it is blamed for it,  the people are powerless to tell its members to go and look for another job.  If the people must remain sovereign, any contrivance in the constitution that seek to create a mini-branch of government that is outside the oversight of the people must be excised and expunged.  There is little doubt that Cha-Cha proponents can wear their moral armor in splendid color fighting for the abolition of the JBC in the constitution.

       The greatest constitutional government of all times,  the United States of America, has not adopted in her constitution a parallel outfit as the JBC because she remains faithful to the concept of the Republican form of government where check and balance is in place and accountability of government officials is demandable by the sovereign people.  Under the submission that the JBC is a power-chute of the Supreme Court which is outside the sovereign will, Thomas Jefferson’s observation about the Supreme Court acquires a new dimension:

     “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is “boni judicis est ainpliare jurisdictionem,” and their power the more dangerous as they are in once for life . The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots”.
 

 

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Filipino Voices Is Shrilled Over HR 1109!

                Writing at Filipino Voices  (FV)  is a time-consuming endeavor and I do not have the time.  But glancing at FV does not require so much time and glancing at it lately, I was shocked to find the collective “Voice”  shrilled and frayed over HR 1109,  a resolution that some say is a precursor to the extension of the reign of the queen at Malacanang. 

          The conundrum of voices  at  FV over the resolution that convenes the lower house as a constituent assembly to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of Tralala sent tremors to my self-absorbed activity and self-imposed furlough, and brought me back to punch my keyboard at the expense of my personal endeavor that requires my full and undivided attention.  I can only look with envy at some prolific contributors at this site  that can mass-produce literary pieces on a coffee-break, or others that can churn out articles after articles with classic  theme of “beating around the bush” and mindless of the footprint their masterpieces leave on the minds of  the readers.  I look at the readers with respect and studied caution and thus would think a while before I smoke my keyboard.

       The Constitution is the law of the land.  Some say it is like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched and must be viewed with sanctimonious reverence.  [Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826)]  Some say  it was made by the people and the people alone can unmake it.  It is a creature of their own will and lives only by their will. [John Marshall (1755-1835)].

               So if you were a Jeffersonian in thought, your protest against HR 1109 is justified.  The Constitution which is too sacred a covenant will be soiled  if the scoundrels in Congress will be allowed to touch it, but if you were of Marshall’s insight,  the constitution can be rewritten by the people, or by the people’s representatives in Congress.

            But which  Congress constitutes ¾  that can propose amendments to the Constitution?  HR 1109 was quite certain that ¾ of congress is the total number of congressmen and senators minus 25%.  Or if there are 265 congressmen and 24 senators,  ¾ of that number is 217.  The Resolution which the House has portrayed to have been unanimously passed on June 2, 2009 with the “ayes” drowning the “nays” brings back to memory the 1973 Marcos constitution which was ratified by viva voce in the barangay halls of the Republic Tralala.  The House claimed that the vote constituted ¾ of Congress voting to constitute itself as a constituent assembly to propose amendments to the constitution.    Its leadership calls everyone to visit Art. XVII of the Constitution and be enlightened by the reality that the said article did not say that ¾ of Congress means ¾ of the House and ¾ of the Senate convening in a joint session or separately. 

        The House reads Article XVII of the Constitution  to mean that ¾ of Congress is 217 all congressmen without Senators,  or 217  regardless of whether the number has congressmen and senators in them.

       But take note that the FV writer that started this brouhaha in an Open Letter said that there were  170 Congressmen who approved the resolution and therefore the number is short of 47 votes to make ¾ that is authorized to make amendments to the Constitution.  He has not intimidated that he has inside information of the insidious plot in the house to present this Resolution as having been voted by at least 217 congressmen and therefore would force through the throat of the nation that it is now authorized to tinker with the Constitution and prolong the reign of the queen.

        Except for a couple of Senators who twitted on the claim of the House about what constitutes ¾ of Congress, the general response of the Senate was totally dispassionate.  The general sentiment in the Senate is that the House is free to believe whatever legal nuances it has on the constitution, but the interpretation of the provisions thereof is lodged with the Supreme Court.   So expect a forthcoming saga being fought in the judicial trenches.

        But are we not supposed to have faith in  the wisdom of our elected congressmen to amend the constitution for after all we elected them to the office to perform  precisely what they had been mandated to perform, to “sit as constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution?”  Or had we been affected so much by Benign0’s  old-familiar refrain, that these bozos are the representation of ourselves as a people and therefore they are as half-wits and dimwits as ourselves to be entrusted with solemn duty to tweak the fundamental law of the land?   Who then can we trust to rewrite the constitution?

         Does anyone consider our present recriminations misplaced and premature because we have yet to see how the House will brew the constitution but we were already bellyaching on the treasonous sell-out by which our distinguished congressmen offered us HR 1109?

         If the recipe is abhorrent to our taste, are we not supposed to spew it out and reject it in a plebiscite that is called to ratify the amendments?  Why do we have to protest so much on an issue the resolution of which lies within our sovereign  capacity to resolve?

         Apparently our discordant voices foreshadow that lack of faith in the wisdom of our congressmen we elected to office.  We are the mirror of these bozos in Congress and feel a very nauseating discomfort of seeing ourselves as half-wits and yet rewriting  the sacred law of the land.

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Tehankee, Estrada and Martinez Pardon, A Cruel Politics!

    I had been a GMA admirer, partly because I respect her late father-president, Diosdado Macapagal.  Despite her being involved in the 2004 election cheating (“Hello Garci”), I still gave her the benefit of the doubt and had consoled myself with the idea of a “movie” star as President is “gross” compared to an economist at the helm of a fractious and poor country.  Election in our country is a big joke anyway. 

 

        But pardons and clemency left and right, led me to a rude awakening that GMA’s Presidency does not have what it takes to lead a divided, poor and miserable country.  Her leadership has not only bankrupted the economy, mortgaged the future of generations to come, just like the way previous politicians did, but also deprived us of our remaining resource, our dignity as a people.  

 

              In 2007, GMA pardoned one of killers of Senator Aquino, Pablo Martinez, without imposing a simple condition that the parolee narrate  to the entire nation the story from the perspective of one who has a direct hand in the murder of Senator Aquino of what happened in that infamous day of August 21, 1983.  In the same year, GMA pardoned President Joseph Estrada for committing plunder while the ink in the Sandiganbayan decision has yet to settle dry in the pages of that verdict. Now GMA has freed convicted felon Claudio Teehankee, Jr. for the murder of  Maureen Hultman and Chapman and the attempt on the life of Leino in 1991.

  

       It is not mercy.  It is political maneuver of which GMA has  become so astute lately.  It is also mockery of our judicial system,  which is never known now nor in the past for integrity and principles.  But in the cases of Teehanke, Estrada and Martinez, the judiciary has done a splendid job and has given meaning, albeit ephemerally, to the concept of “righteousness and justice”.  

 

       Mr. Martinez was pardoned at a time when Mrs. Cory Aquino was asking for the resignation of GMA for uncontrolled graft and corruption in GMA’s administration.  The pardon was seen by many as a retaliatory move against Mrs. Aquino by GMA. Mr. Estrada was pardoned because GMA had tried to court the affection of the misguided urban poor, that  are pro-Estrada of which there are plenty in Metro Manila. The parole of Mr. Teehankee was a simple case of those in the corridors of power, (his brother being one of GMA’s diplomats) can make miracles denied of ordinary prisoners convicted of lesser crimes.

 

     GMA blew everything the country could have stand for: “the law is hard but it is the law, and justice is blind and it is administered without bias or favor”. 

 

     In the case of Teehanke, just see  how painful it is to see a “disturbed” individual getting back his freedom while his victims are several feet under the ground.  Here is Wikipedia’s grim reminder of what happened in that tragic 1991 incident involving Teehanke, Hultman, Chapman and Leino: 

 

  

      The Hultman-Chapman murder case was a murder case that gained wide publicity in the Philippines during the early 1990’s. This is due to the fact that Claudio Teehankee, Jr., the perpetrator of the crime, was the son of the late former Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee, Sr. and the brother of former Justice Undersecretary Manuel Teehankee. The case helped sway the public view on crime and restore the death penalty in the Philippines.

 

       Court records show that Chapman, Hultman, and another friend, Jussi Leino, were coming home from a party at around three o’clock in the morning of July 13, 1991. Leino was walking Hultman home along Mahogany street in Dasmariñas Village, Makati City when Teehankee came up behind them in his car. He stopped the two and demanded that they show some identification. Leino took out his wallet and showed Teehankee his Asian Development Bank ID. Teehankee grabbed the wallet. Chapman, who was waiting in a car for Leino, stepped in and asked Teehankee: “Why are you bothering us?” Teehankee drew out his gun and shot Chapman in the chest, killing him instantly. After a few minutes, Teehankee shot Leino, hitting him in the jaw. Then he shot Hultman on the temple before driving away. Leino survived and Hultman died two months later in hospital due to brain hemorrhages caused by the bullet fragments. Teehankee was arrested several days later on the testimony of several witnesses. The witnesses were Domingo Florence and Agripino Cadenas, private security guards, and Vincent Mangubat, a driver, all three being employs of residents of the village.

Why Are Pinoys So Stressed Out?

                Everyday, Pinoys are confronted by stress mostly brought about by the economy.  Food prices and cost of services go up.  Added to this stressful situation is the increasing number of Pinoys who have no work, not that we are lazy, but work opportunities are simply not there. 

As if this unfortunate situation is not enough, that the politicians who offered solution to this sad state had not only broken their promise of deliverance but had even caused more grief by robbing the Pinoys blind and distributed the largesse of government contracts to their cronies or friends.  Politicians bled the  treasury dry, the courts are corrupt and the mainstream Pinoys suffer.  The promise of good life is only for those who have access to powers and their very few fortunate extensions.

Services are too poor that some of our “kababayans” do not even have clean water to drink and electricity to light their homes.  If water and electricity are available, chances are, most Pinoys could not afford their costs. Garbage and pollution is all over Metro Manila, but the greater pollution that saps the strength most Pinoys is the brigandage in the bureaucracy.  This pollution so stink that lately,  high court magistrates were sacked for indiscretion and most government contracts are padded with nauseating commissions.

Some sectors of Pinoys have long given up the prospect of getting a better life in the Philippines that they decided to seek employment somewhere else.  But with worldwide economic crunch, even overseas Pinoys are still stressed out but not as much as when they were in the Philippines. 

So how do Pinoys overseas deal with stress?  I can only speak for some Pinoys who try to deal with their daily stress in Michigan. Or more specifically, how do we deal with our own stress here.

We have a small Pinoy community with diverse membership due to intermarriages that makes it a point every other weekend before winter time sets in, to go camping. Fish on the lake and play “beach” volleyball had the lake had been the sea.  Half of the afternoon would be spent sitting on collapsible plastic chairs around collapsible plastic table to play card games, sip a can of beer which is kept secret from the camp  guards because drinking is prohibited in the camp. While secretively sipping your beer, you  can engage in loud banter that makes you forget about your car and house mortgages or your credit card payables. 

Or a special weekend is spent in carnival, at Ohio Ceddar Point, a famous carnival hideaway of huge real estate complete with rides that can give you the adrenalin rush of fear or excitement.  In another part of the park is a train track of about a mile slithering through the wooded area and along its track is a panoply of structures to simulate the “Old Old West”, a salon, a barber shop, ironsmith shop, a sheriff’s office and a jail where bandits, cowboys and Indians used to mix it up.  Volley of gunfire would be heard as the train idle its way through this mile ride and you could see cowboys and bandits and other classic characters from human skeletons dressed-coded for the characters they tried to recreate.  The firecrackers to simulate the gunfire must have been lit by humans and not by these skeleton characters along the train’s track.  I told a friend that a “tomahawk” landing on the train wall slightly above our head could have provided a more realistic hair-raising experience.

These weekends escapades provide much needed relaxation from the day to day stress in the workplace; a group interaction, a nap or full night sleep inside the tent can reeve up tired and weary souls so on weekdays these overseas Pinoys can cope with the stress again.

Most local Pinoys would spend time brooding. When they cannot cope up with the stress anymore they would  commit petty to serious crimes that when caught they would offer the tired old refrain that it was out of  “malaking pangangailangan”, ( dire economic needs) that prompted them to commit these crimes.

The difference between Pinoy locals and the overseas Pinoys is quite stark in terms of credit facilities.  Most overseas Pinoys  can avail of credit denied of their local counterparts.  Locals have most of the time would live in squalor or one-room leased for home.  Apartments are expensive while building a home on credit, is even more expensive, if credit would have been available at all.  These are stressors to local Pinoys.

Locals have to depend themselves in public transport because few can afford cars considered in some place as common possession and necessities.  In Detroit, known as the “motor city” of the world, public transport was not developed and only few percentage of the populace is dependent on it.  And quite admiringly, despite the battered economy in Michigan, Pinoys do not make use of public transport, unlike California or New York,  where trolleys, bus and trains serve the populace of all ethnic groups.

Let us go back to the campsite. Our group would eat Pinoy food of adobo, fried “daing”, “tortang talong”, fried tilapia or “bangus” “pansit”  or “dinuguan”.  No nitrate and sodium rich hamburgers and sausages.  Americans who married Pinoys are quite accustomed to eating  “dinuguan”, which they more vividly described as “chocolate meat” savored best with white “puto”.

The camping ground is hundred acres of tall trees,  huge inland lake, hills, grassy grounds and several buildings  serving as bathrooms and restrooms.  It is rural all right but the campers brought the amenities of the home they left behind.

Inside colorful tents are air beds, flashlights, coolers full of your favorite drinks and beverages and even portable heaters.

I dreamt of being able to lit a fireplace with flint stone, brew a coffee in run down caldron and drink it in a chip off porcelain cup or aluminum G.I. canteen which would make the environment rustic and more rural, but even that yearning for real mountain adventure is denied of you because people simply would like to enjoy and bring the convenience of the home to this far place called camping grounds. So the camp is complete with lighters, plastic cups, coffee brewers, water jugs, collapsible kitchen sink and even  patches of instant cold or hot compress.

I would like to feel mounds of pebble and light touch of sand on my belly or back as I retired inside a tent but that is not even possible because of the air-bed in the tent.

These regular weekend camp adventures rejuvenate one’s tired body and mind.  Stress was gone to face another yet workplace stress when Monday comes. I can only wish that our local Pinoys can find a ubiquitous camping ground or carnival spot that are affordable soon.

September 22, 2008
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An Open Letter to SC Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno

 

Please look closely at the banner overhead CJ Puno. It says "Kabuhayan, Karapatan, Katarungan". Then read the entire post if you can make some sense out of the slogan on the banner.

(This letter was received by CJ Puno on September 8, 2008 and he did not even care to respond to the letter).

August 29, 2008 

Dear Chief Justice Puno; 

     Our nation is in turmoil –  our institutions are in constant challenge – we have always been under social strife.  

      Amidst this turmoil, people come to your judicial enclave to adjudicate their claim over a piece of ancestral territory, others asked that you to set them free, some asked for money to be paid by his adversary, some asked you to curb excesses of government authority, the President had asked that her executive secrets and her private tapes be forever be sealed,  still others come to dishonor some members of the Bar or the Bench.  

        I come to you today to plea for my honor back and I write this letter for posterity.  

        Yesterday, August 28, I received a letter from the State Bar of California that your Office had advised the Committee of Bar Examiners “that due to a finding of misconduct, I was suspended from the practice of law in the Philippines effective August 9, 2005, and that the suspension remains in effect”. [George Solatan vs. Inocentes, et. al A.C. No. 6504.  (Copy of the letter is enclosed herewith)].

          Your Honor was part of the Division which penned the decision about my administrative case and despite my two Motions for Reconsideration,  the Court had denied them in two minute resolutions.  The last resolution affirming the finding that I was guilty of professional misconduct was  dated March 22, 2006.  I received copy of the Order  in the first week of April and I was of the impression that 12 months after April 2006 or in  April 2007, my suspension for one year to practice law has been served and thus I am free to practice my profession again.

          If my suspension remains in effect despite the lapse of more than one year because I have to do some paperwork to restore my standing, such does not appear to be the tenor of the letter I have received from the Committee of the California State Bar. If ever I have to do some penance or paperwork to regain my good standing, a modicum of fairness requires that the undersigned be informed about them so compliance can be made.

           Like His Honor, I was raised poor and I descend from a humble beginning.  Like His Honor, I put myself through law school and for a large measure, through the help of so many good souls. My administrative case has caused me sleepless nights, pain and agony.  I consider my honor my treasure and an heirloom worthy to bequeath to my children but that has been tarnished by this administrative case.  To clear my name, I have brought to public consciousness the indictment against my character, which common mortal, would have otherwise keep under wrap.  I am never ashamed of this case, though I ache in the idea that the Supreme Court, which I have tried to believe to be the fountain of everything that is just is otherwise unjust.

        I have tried to engage the public on issues that may affect them in the future, and though I am a zealot proponent of the principle that a pending legal issue must be resolved within the confines of the court’s four walls, such issue assumed a totally different dimension when it is finally made to rest.

        A final judicial decision, like the act of Congress or the Executive, can be a subject of a public debate.  Public accountability and judicial responsibility demand that every court decision must not only be defended in the four walls of this Court, but even at the halls of public opinion.  It was under this higher constitutional precept that I wrote my book.

       If the advice by this Court to the Committee of Bar Examiners of California to derail my moral fitness qualification was an offshoot of my attempt  to debate my administrative case outside the Court, your Office should at least been candid about it and must have informed the California Bar Committee accordingly.

          This Court, under your watch has tried to light the torch of the ideals of democracy and liberty and you have the occasion to write:

        “A government’s democratic legitimacy rests on the people’s information on government plans and progress on its initiatives, revenue and spending,  among others, for that will allow the people to vote, speak, and organize around political causes meaningfully. As Thomas Jefferson said, “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and will never be.” (Dissenting Opinion, Neri vs. Senate, G.R. No. 180643).

        I have exercised my right to speak because I believe I am free.  I have exercised my right to dissent in the same way that you have exercised yours against the best judgment of your distinguished brethrens in the bench. Must we seek for the distinction between your dissent and mine and deny me that God-given gift as a free human being while you invoke the protection of your right to dissent without fear, without apprehension, and without expecting any reprisal or punishment?  Is there fairness in such submission?

         Your peroration on the writ of Habeas Data would stir us to look for the truth that will stand the test of time and not seek for shallow imageries or appearances of truth.  You have intoned:

          “Indeed, truth is the bedrock of all legal systems, whether the system follows the common law tradition or the civil law tradition. Justice that is not rooted in truth is injustice in disguise. That kind of justice will not stand the test of time, for it is not anchored on reality but on mere images.”

         I am your disciple in that regard and so I squelch every imagery and appearance of truth and tried to seek for its true meaning beyond this imagery and found that this Court is not the only repository of good conduct and wisdom and the dispenser of everything that is just.   In fact, history has led us to believe that the capacity of our institution to succeed in its sworn task is intertwined with its doom.  It is doomed the moment one single innocent soul is served punishment instead of reward, condemnation instead of exaltation; and despite the monumental data of probity and wisdom in all other situations, they are all dimmed by this one slip up.

      Your speech on the Writ of Habeas Data was centered on the protection of human rights from abuse of government authorities.  My right to earn a decent livelihood is a basic human right that is at stake in this exercise.  But where does one go if he is abused by the very institution where he expects justice from?   Where do I go if this Court stood pat on its position that despite the lapse of almost two years, my suspension of one year is still in effect and thus deprive me of my right to continue to practice my profession?

       Should I endear myself to the Court’s discourse on truth and justice or does that entitle me describe it as  “hypocrisy?”

        If in God’s grace I pass the California Bar and denied admission because this Court will not give me a clean bill of professional demeanor, I will not for the second time come back to this Court to beg for my honor.  I will not beg for the restoration of my honor because I believe that in the eyes of the Lord, I am honorable.  I believe I have given this Court the chance to be just when I filed my two motions and to be magnanimous when I wrote this letter.  This Court may choose to validate my thesis that this Court is unjust, nay it is vindictive.

        It was injustice enough that I was suspended from the practice of law for one year.  It was double injustice that I continue suspended despite the lapse of my suspension period.

        I write because this Court, under your watch, may be able to step down from its pedestal and provide a veneer shadow of its probity and wisdom and hear one’s plea to correct an injustice.  It is up to your Office to perpetuate it or to end it. 

 Sincerely yours,

JOSE C. CAMANO

Michigan, USA                       

 

Cc:

Committee of Bar Examiners

State Bar of California

1149 South Hill Street

Los Angeles, CA 90015-2299     

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REMEMBERING SENATOR “NINOY” AQUINO

VIDEO UPLOAD COURTESY BY:Ubermensch4ever 

“My grandfather explained about the spirit world, how the souls of our ancestors continue to need love and attention and devotion. Given these things, they will share in our lives and they will bless us and even warn us about disasters in our dreams. But if we neglect the souls of our ancestors, they will become lost and lonely and will wander around in the kingdom of the dead no better off than a warrior killed by his enemy and left unburied in a rice paddy to be eaten by blackbirds of prey”.       (Robert Olen Butler,U.S. writer).

             I honor Ninoy in my book.   I have devoted one chapter, “Are We Worth Dying For” plus some references on him outside this chapter. They are reprinted herein below:

              “One of the finest 20th century heroes of the country went home in August 1983 from a 3-year exile from the US with a prophetic candor that the Filipinos were worth dying for. Few minutes after his plane landed, his military escorts shot him at the back of his head and few steps before his tired and weary feet longing for home touch the tarmac. A commission was formed to investigate the murder and it was headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court whom many have considered a lackey of Mrs. Imelda Marcos because he was seen holding an umbrella for Mrs. Marcos in one of those public functions. The commission was subjected to intense public criticism, thus Mr. Marcos was forced to create another headed by Justice Corazon Agrava,  a retired jurist who was perceived to be another Malacanang loyalist.

               The Agrava Commision came up with two reports, The Minority Report and the Majority Report.  The minority report  which was submitted by Mrs. Agrava to Mr. Marcos has cleared Senator Aquino’s  military escorts for  his death and pointed to the lone communist gunman,  Mr. Rolando  Galman as the culprit.  This was  Malacanang’s  story line on how Aquino died.  The majority report submitted by the other members of the Commission found Senator Aquino’s military escorts to have conspired to kill Ninoy.

          On the basis of this findings all the military escorts were charged with murder in 1985 but were all acquitted. After Marcos fled to Hawaii in 1986, the Supreme Court declared a mistrial and another trial was conducted and found his 16 military escorts guilty of the murder. The mastermind was never known, but the people had the right suspect in their collective minds.

    (Please take note that the new Supreme Court considered the acquittal of the military escorts of Senator Aquino as a “sham trial” and has ordered a retrial before the Sandiganbayan.  The attitude of the SC was understandable because Mr. Marcos had already fled to Hawaii and Mrs. Corazon Aquino, Senator Aquino’s widow became the President in 1986. This is the year where the SC considered the decision of the Sandiganbayan acquitting all the accused from the murder of Senator Aquino a sham trial).

         (And yes, in this Chapter I answered the query that we are worth dying for.  But you have to read the book to find out why).

         References of Senator Aquino outside this chapter:

         “ x x x Gandhi was willing to be bruised by the British soldiers without let up and without putting up a fight until the soldiers would lose their appetite to beat him up. Senator Aquino was imprisoned by Mr. Marcos for 7 years and was sentenced to die by Mr. Marcos’  military tribunal but when he got the news that Mr. Marcos was ill, he hurried back home to talk some sense to the President to call for an election and transfer power to the civilian government instead of allowing a military junta to rule the country”.

 ” x x x

         The discussion of the Supreme Court of the Aquino v. Enrile case went at length on the existence of the threat of subversion from both the Maoist New People’s Army and the secessionist Moro National Liberation Front from Mindanao, (MNLF). The threat from the NPA and the MNLF, however, can be easily contained by the Army which remained loyal to the institution of the government.  (59 SCRA 183)  The deference the Court made to the President to declare martial law on account of his control of various agencies which monitored the activities of the “enemies” of the state has blunted the Court’s right to inquire into whether such state of insurrection existed or not, and considered his determination of the state of emergency a political question therefore beyond the power of the court to inquire. Thus it has conveniently failed to inquire into the motives of the executive about those claims in the light of the fact that Mr. Marcos in 1973 can no longer run for President and even if he could, the faltering economy and the unpopularity of his government made the “Boy Wonder” from Tarlac a shoo-in for the Presidency. Martial law was an excuse for perpetration to power and the Supreme Court was nothing more than a willing accomplice of the repression that follows. The Aquino case was a plethora of 448 pages of legal dissertations and historical events designed to distort the crucial period of our history itself. Those moments in our history where two political titans have tried to compete for one political firmament and one was about to outshine the other had not his opponent beckoned the institutions of power and used those institutions to outclass his competitor. But in the minds of the historians, and the generations to come that are willing to see through the fog of distortions made by the Court, Senator Aquino has outclassed his nemesis; he died a glorious death – his blood rekindles the Filipinos’ love for freedom, while his tormentor died a silent death, felled by sickness in a strange and far away soil.”

 ” x x x    

              And by the way, the Supreme Court has a history of not standing up on the side of the truth. In 1979 the Supreme Court had refused to rescue Senator Aquino who was later sentenced to die by musketry by the military courts of Mr. Marcos.

            Senator Aquino had earlier asked the Supreme Court to transfer his case from the military tribunal to the civilian courts which were open during martial law. Frustrated by the demeanor of the Court, he tried to withdraw his petition, just like the way the late Senator Diokno did on his petition for habeas corpus in 1973, but the Court nonetheless ruled on his motion for transfer of jurisdiction against him by claiming that the military courts have been duly constituted and therefore have jurisdiction over civilian defendants. 

         It was the subtle pressure from the US State Department that spared Senator Aquino’s life from the murderous military tribunals in 1975 only to be slain in 1983 by the same dark forces that lay behind those institutions of power under Marcos. [Aquino vs. Military Tribunal, (63 SCRA 549)] when Senator Aquino went home after a three-year of exile from the US. 

“ x x x

          A congressman from Ilocos Sur was shot at the back while about to receive the sacrament of a communion one Sunday morning. The house of worship was not safe from lawlessness that was perpetrated by those who are supposed to uphold the law. Gangland execution style of this magnitude, just like the execution of Senator Aquino in tarmac in 1983 can only be done by people in authority with tacit approval of the intended plan from someone up in the chain of command”.   (NOTE:  This post has been updated from what originally appeared in the Book to make the narration more correct).

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THE EARTHQUAKE AND THE BAR

 

         Four  days in California, three of which inside a pressure-cooker called San Mateo Expo Center, San Francisco, a 4-hour drive to Los Angeles, where one of the laptop sites of the California Bar Exam was administered this July 29-31.  

  

         My limited budget for hotel booked way back in May destined me to Marriot Hotel after the San Diego and LA hotels offered outrageous price of more than $250 a day compared to less than $200 in Marriot.  But you will be amazed to find that the Marriot in San Francisco is an exquisite place, clean and quite. The price variance was only due to the fact that the two cities are more metropolis and extremely urbanized compared to San Francisco.

 

        In  hindsight though, my enforced frugality did not only save me from few more dollars of credit card indebtedness, but also from the horrendous experience of having to finish the first day of the exam under the table because a 5.4 magnitude quake that hit LA and sent tremors up to San Diego area at 11:42 a.m. eastern time Tuesday, created quite a confused and chaotic situation in the bar exam centers in those two areas.  The 3-hour of the first day morning bar session should officially end at 12:00 noon

 

          A seatmate in San Mateo whose classmates took their test in LA worriedly broke the news that the situation in LA was quite chaotic and bar applicants, though jittery have to finish the exams under the table because the swaying of the building and the posts could send whatever is up on the ceiling careening down your head or your priceless laptop with the software that allows you to type your answer in your computer and then download our answer to a secure server where attendants have to decrypt them and send them to bar graders after you are through with the exam.  You cannot reopen your answer file once you have finished the exam because you need to use a decryption code to do it.  Even if you can decrypt the answer file and make changes in your answer, the timestamp will indicate hat you did it outside the regulation time, then you are busted. 

 

PHOTO FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST

 

             At any rate, the  LA/San Diego quake makes my head turn up  to heaven again as I always do  on similar situations and mumbled, Lord, you really work in some mysterious ways, but why not be fair to others?   But His notion of fair-play could be different from human standpoint.  Because it is always possible that this five minutes of dreadful clueless act of nature in LA and San Diego could have unleashed extreme onrush of adrenalin on those applicants and reconnected all those hay wired webs of protein in their brains and made them geniuses for 18 minutes before closing time.  These 18 minutes of super alertness could spell the difference between passing and failing the exam.

 

       Still, He works in some mysterious ways, though not necessarily always  in your favor.

 

       Incidentally,   before I was allowed to take the bar, the Bar Committee looking into my moral fitness to practice law in California was anxious to find if I have rehabilitated myself from my extortionist propensity as found by the Supreme Court of the Philippines.  I could have almost said  Duhh?

 

           But, I told the Committee that the accusation that I am an extortionist was not true and quite frankly I could not exorcise myself of a vice and defect in character I considered non-existent. I gave the Bar Committee copy of my book and my Second Motion for Reconsideration.  I just hope and wish that the Bar Committee gets its cue from there.

PHOTO FROM MONSTERSANDCRITICS.COM

DATELINE: DETROIT, 06.27.08

       

 We took off at 9:15 a.m. from Detroit airport via NWA flight 997 for Miami, Florida for a 3-day cruise to the Bahamas.     

    

   We are a party of six: my wife, Gloria, daughters Kaycee and Loren, my son’s mother-in-law, Noemi and her son TJ. (short for Timothy Jayson).  One could say that we are off to a “nurses convention” in the Bahamas because except for Loren  who has yet to take her freshman course this September as a nursing student, and myself, everyone else  is a nurse.       

          Noemi is a physician-nurse. She  owns a hospital in Isabela and works as a nurse in the nursing home where my wife works.  She hustles back and forth from the Philippines to the US, works 6 months as  obstetrician in her own hospital and  six months in the U.S. nursing home.  It is rather odd, but luckily, she has no plans of working as a forensic pathologist, or as a mortician, otherwise she would have all the bases covered.  Aside from being rich, she is a widow,  charming, and a very nice lady and she has more fun in the US than in the Philippines.                  

         My son Benjo and his wife, Aimee who are nurses too were already in Miami waiting for us, having flown a day earlier  from their work in Denver, Colorado.  

     When the plan was afoot to take this vacation cruise, I have raised some objection about it because I hate flying and I see no relevance in spending money, (though not mine) when I think of my poor relations in the Philippines  who could benefit more if my side of the expense would be converted into cash and remitted to the Philippines and hope to find this amount in the bloodstream of commerce as my contribution to the deteriorating economy.  But despite my suggestion that I be provided my cash side of the expense  instead,  my wife said no.   

        I always find consistent difficulty and irony in undertaking a fun and pleasure trip while so many have the bare necessities to sustain life, or to put it more bluntly, while so many homes have their rice baskets empty.  Added to this dilemma is the fact that I have to close my business for four days and have to lose some money in the process.  I could have built a mini-crisis in my relationship with my wife and my kids on account of the social paradox that I found myself in, but the better part of prudence doused cold my intransigence.  

              So off we go. No cell phone and laptop and no blogging in political websites for 4 days (one day more for flight to Miami and back to Detroit).  My mind was in for a real pleasure and fun.   On flight to Miami for Bahamas, though, Kaycee, who used to write feature articles in her high school paper handed me a quarter size of a writing yellow pad. This pad and my pen become handy substitute for a keyboard and a monitor screen.  I started to write.

 

Bahamas Diary, Day One

 

BAHAMAS DIARY, DAY ONE, 06.27.08

 The plane touchdown at 11:45 a.m., a good 2.5 hours fligh from Detroit.  We took a taxi-van, not a taxicab because our luggage would not fit in a small car on ouf way to the Port of Miami.  After about 15 minutes slithering through the unfamiliar city streets, the van reached the seaport and we found Benjo and Aimee excitedly waiting for us.  My son handed me a rayban as a birthday gift on an occasion that was two weeks past, while others were locked in tight embrace and hug and enthusiastic kiss. My son had embraced me tight, though not as tight as when he embraced her mom and two sisters.

VIEW OF MIAMI PORT FROM THE SHIP

 While we arrived at the port from the airport at around 12:15 p.m. and boarded it about one hour later and sailed to the Bahamas at 5:00 p.m., you do not feel any need to rush because the excitement has yet to die down, and inside the ship itself, was a total fun. 

        Passengers were being processed at the port before they are allowed to board the ship.  The security was tight as the airport security; every bag and container were being scanned and every passenger has a snapshot taken at the gate. This has caused some snag, but it makes you feel safe.  You have to trade off your yearning for convenience with a feeling of security because you want your trip to be pleasurable as it is, and not one that is very nightmarish.

STARBOARD LOADING PASSENGERS

   The cruise ship is named “Carnival Fascination”, registered in the Bahamas, and which according to its literature, has an international crew of 920, (you would be amazed to find that majority of the crew are Filipinos, others are Jamaicans, Indonesians, Tahitians, Americans, Germans, and Europeans). The ship has an Italian ship captain; it can accommodate 2,657 passengers, weighs 70,367 tons, length, 855 feet, width, 104, eleven decks, or about the height of a 12 story building; 3 outdoor pools, 2 restaurants, shops, 6 jacuzzis, fitness center, spa, beauty salon, casino, bars, library, 58 elevators, 28 suites, 58 verandah cabins, 14 powered life boats with 15 passengers capacity each perched alongside the sundeck, colored life jackets for everyone complete with whistle and beckon lights, satellite radios, communications equipment and a fire department.

         Though you find an initial fun and excitement as you settled down inside the ship and were required to attend a 15-minute crash course on how to put on a life vest and familiarize yourself with the evacuation routine before the ship sails away, your mind brings you back to the realities of the ill-fated MV Princess of the Stars with 864 passengers that  sank  off Sibuyan island on June 21 as a  result of neglect and failure in regulation. 

                To this day, only 33 survivors have been found and it was tragic.                         

         Before we sail to the Bahamas we have eaten our lunch at the sundeck where the pools are. The passengers is a mini United Nations, composed of nationalities from different nations. Young and old, thin and obese, fair skinned and dark skinned, beautiful people and less beautiful, but all seem to work in one symmetry and balance that this cruise would  be a wonderful one  which they could remember and relive.

    

At the sundeck food stable, we have fish and chicken, fruits and drinks.  You can go back in line to satisfy all your cravings.   Your social  conscience had ached a little bit again because while I have encouraged my children to finish the food on their plates just as I told them when they were much younger, you can see chunks of leftovers  on most plates and they have to be discarded and must go to waste. Some passengers would not care much of this wastage.  The passengers already paid  good money for the food and the trip.  But as you think of your own  people who have no food on their table that day,   your sadness sinks back in.    

        It is at the fine dining area where we met Bernice and his supervisor, Anthony, a Jamaican who speaks halting Tagalog. Bernice is in his late twenties with wife and a son in Valenezuela, Metro Manila and works on a $1000 monthly salary and shares in the tip, which could run another $1000 more.  He goes home every six months.        

        We also met Sarah a receptionist in one of the shopping areas near the elevator, whom we were not able to know where she is from and Rafael, the photographer from Pangasinan, who also receive $1000 monthly salary plus commission if he makes a quota on the number of shots he had taken.

 Other crew we just happen to know to be Filipinos because they would greet us in crisp and unadulterated Tagalog.  Life in the ship is enjoyable even if you are not there as a guest.  You do not sweat much  because it has a centralized air-conditioning and with the food already paid for by the guest, I could venture that they must eat the same food as the guests. 

        We went to the front deck where the captain has the full vision of the ocean to navigate the ship.  We were on top of the captain’s cabin holding on the railings that surround the ship and the warmth atmosphere was replaced with the gentle sea breeze caressing your face, people were excited, grinning and jostling on the limited  space facing the wide expanse of the Atlantic. 

         The strong wind would blow a lady’s skirt and exposed her underwear but she was  oblivious of this innocent exposure and the intrusion on her person because like everyone else,  the focus was on the wide expanse of the Atlantic and the serenity of the ocean despite its dangerous possibilities.  Or one could guess that the lady would not bring her up skirts down so she can  bare the contour of her behind, or she had her hands tied up protecting her hair from being disheveled by the ruckus wind. 

       But this is a cruise ship where girls would bathe under the sun or in a pool with skimpy bikinis.  This few square inch of clothing either highlights the contour of your body in a magnificent way or distorts it.  If you have hundred summers gone by, your body would not do justice to your bikini because it is remarkably easy to distinguish  if the pleat is that of the skin or the fabric.  If hundred summers had not passed you by you may consider passing it up too  if you are slightly overweight. This lady is neither, so she would not mind the exposure at all.               

While you think that bikinis are objectionable only on those two situations, you find it still objectionable at all times when worn by your daughters. While you see some beauty of this scanty clothing in someone else’s daughter you see outright fornication in yours.  It is a double-standard of perceiving things.

     But you have to accept the fact that your daughters have grown, and have to live with that fact.

       Those little girls you use to hold with your arms and toss them on the air giggling with reckless abandon as you catch them with your bare hands as they descend were gone.  Time flies and you yearn for those innocent days of your kids, how’d your wish you can hold the time still.

        As the ship throttles in full speed ahead, the horn atop blew hard several times that almost shatter our eardrums, and the vibration could almost knock you down, but people simply covered their ears and still managed to laugh.  No one was upset,  a good sign enough that the trip could really be really that fun.    

       We tarried a little while at the deck.  In this place of the world at summer time,  the sun was still up at 7:00 p.m., but we were hungry.  So we went back to our cabin, and dressed up formally for a dinner.    

      After dinner  we went to a Karaoke  Bar. Loren and Aimee sang beautifully in front of these mini-United Nations “delegation”. Loren had learned to sing and to play the piano because she was tutored to these two disciplines. She was the lead actress in the musical “Guys in Dolls” in Divine Child high school, an almost all white school, this year and many of her classmates and friends were asking her to audition for the American Idol.    I would settle for a slot in the Philippine Idol.    

     I asked her to sing “I Will Always Love You” by  Whitney Houston.  The African  American guests in the bar went  on their feet shouting and applauding after they found out that she can hit the high notes of the song with such an ease and flamboyance.  They also sang with her on their seats but a mother have to hush her noisy kids so she can feel the flavor of the Ms. Houston’s piece in an Asian female vocalist.             

      While I have long known that Loren can sing, I did not know that my son Benjo can also sing. He belted a song the title and lyrics of which I do not know but it turned out good and exciting  that even the male audience in the crowd ended up singing and imagining they have guitars in hands strumming them with fancy string combination and notes as Benjo would slide from one side of the stage to another side pretending that he has the same guitar in hand strumming it with the notes that accompanies the song.   

        My daughter Kaycee, is normally silent and bashful.  She could not compete in this stage of accolade and admiration, but she has her own talent which every parent can admire.  She is still single, handles her finances pretty well and at age 27, she has her own house, a car and the magnanimity to gift her younger sister with a used red BMW that costs about $10,000.  Though the cruise expense was Loren’s high school graduation gift from her brother, Benjo.      

        Now, I am getting to know my kids again.     

     We went back to our cabin to sleep, but tarried awhile at the Casino poker table to try our luck. I was unlucky but Benjo and TJ were luckier. But it was fun playing at a  computerized casino table with opponents as real persons, and the only computer input was the card shuffling, dealing, winning cards selection  and bets computation.        

          Day one was over, but it was worth reliving.

Bahamas Diary Day 2

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INSIDE THE SHIP

 

BENJO AT KARAOKE BAR

 

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BAHAMAS DIARY, DAY TWO, 06.28.08

  We disembarked after breakfast of coffee,  bread and cheese, scrambled eggs and hotcakes at the pre-assigned table in the fine dining area of the ship where  Bernice and Anthony served as our wait persons. 

      At Nassau port, many locals offered you rides to the city.  Andrea whose husband was one of the regulars in the port,  in a “barong-tagalog” look-alike,  showed us the map of the island and the places we can go to.  Andrea drives a Daihatsu van while her husband stays at the port to look for more tourists.  

1. Nassau: Population 301,790 (2005 estimate) Population density 30 persons per sq. km., 78 persons per sq mi (2005 estimate) Urban population distribution 89 percent (2003 estimate) Rural population distribution 11 percent (2003 estimate).              

Its chief revenue is tourism and could be the reason why the locals would treat tourists so well. No fast break operators who would  rip you off of your precious dollar.

 The inhabitants are dark-skinned but are tidy and I see no one sporting rugs and begging on the streets for food and you have yet to hear someone swearing loudly or speaking in foul-language.   At the port, we have to haggle for a price of services with Andrea,  who drives a van to bring you in any part  of the island, but you would not quibble for a price of food they vend because it might be too embarrassing to ask for a dollar off  your food from a street vendor.  Though one “buko” sells at $5.00  at the water tower at Fincastle where the locals also sell island memorabilia to tourists.

 The city streets remind us of most of our two-lane streets in Manila so were the houses in the island are identical to houses in the skirts of  Metro Manila; medium size, simple and of mostly paved and cemented with corrugated iron sheets for roofs.  Only that their community is cleaner and there is no apparent pollution. 

        Cars are small and there are no trucks.  The driver seats of some cars are  on the left hand side just like our cars in the country, but some cars have the driver seats on the right like the cars from Europe and you have to drive on the left side of the road.

         The city is the seat of government of the Bahamas Island which comprises several islets.  It has its own Parliament whose members are elected every five years by the locals. It has achieved its independence in 1973, though it has been the colony of the British since 1717.  However, up to this date, the Governor remains the representative of  Queen Elizabeth of England which is quite odd.

FAMILY BEHIND THE CRUISE SHIP

         It is much warmer in this City compared to most U.S. States but the atmosphere is not damp.  The island’s climate  brings my memory back to Manila and  my boyhood in the fishing village of Bagacay, Tinambac, Camarines Sur.  The sea breeze as my mother used to say when she was still alive,  was  good for clearing up  your sinuses and your lungs from asthma and pneumonia infection.          

      The Atlantis Hotel which is about 10 minutes ride from the port of Nassau offers its bed to guest from $400 to $2000 a night. It is one of the engineering marvels of the modern times.   The entrance is built on the edge of the island and its main structure is built on seabed.  Huge palisades at the entrance ushered by  7 winged horses in bronze sculpture in galloping or flying  positions around a fountain.

         At the hotel basement are six panels of thick glasses; two on each side which served as the wall of the basement and  separated by huge concrete posts. 

      On your side is the inside of the hotel while the other side is the open sea.  The fish are in controlled area where they can swim freely except towards the sea. 

       You can see through the glass panels variety of fish like milkfish, pampano, talakitok, the bigger version of “sapsap”,  tanguigui, kiskisan, malasugui, stingrays, sharks and palad.  Palad is a fish variety where one side is different from the opposite side.  There are other fish I could not name and identify in this pool of sea creatures gliding elegantly beside this basement glass-cage and the suave fins that propel their graceful motion under water hardly mirrors their objection to the constriction of space in this basement exterior.  They were there to regale their guests.  

I would bet though that had my father been alive today and could have afforded him the pleasure of bringing him to this famous hideaway of Western tourists, he could identify every fish  in this hotel sea-basement.    

     The water in this basement  sea-aquarium is placid and  bluish and is matched  only by the serenity and poise of these fish swimming graciously and they  were not fighting for a territory or a piece nutrient that could lie in the sea’s underbelly.   There is total symmetry not only of the structure that houses the fish but also of the calm and tranquil environment.   I can tour the three walls and be soothed by the peace and stillness of the surrounding and chilled only  by a nostalgic memory of my father who died poor as foreman of road repair crew of the province after he had left fishing in Bagacay. 

      At another part of the island we stopped at Mckenzie, our “turo-turo”  counterpart to lunch. A small plastic plate of “conch”,  a delicacy in the island consisting of a shell entrails, the meat of which has the texture of an escargo (kuhol) or squid or octopus, minus the slime and fish odor, and is being served raw, “kilawin”  style; its pinkish white meat is sliced thin then mixed with fresh lime and lemon squeeze, bell pepper, onion and black pepper and slices of fresh tomato. The exquisite taste of the conch “kinilaw” is matched only by its price of $9.00, though locals claimed that you can gather conch buried in the sand in most beaches of the Bahamas.   You can also ask your host  to fry the conch instead of serving it  fresh, with baked banana slice, fried rice in soy sauce and French fries for the same price. 

        After a bite of   fresh conch, TJ said that he could live in the island forever subsisting on this delicacy and probably would live much longer free from disease-causing  cholesterol and saturated  fats. I can only nod my head in approval.  The regular bottled water costs one dollar, a bottle of soda 2 dollars  and a tin can of  beer about 4 dollars.           

KAYCEE AT ATLANTIS BASEMENT

        Before Andrea toured us in this island, we haggled for the price of $160.00 over what she originally wanted as guide and car fee of $180.00. She drove us through the island and showed us the US Consulate Office, his mansion, the parliament, the police academy,  the only college in Nassau, the mansion of the governor of the island, the water tower which is claimed to be the highest structure of the island, which in my estimate is about the height of a 16-story building.  Below this water tower of  85,000 gallons capacity which serves as the water supply for the island is Fort Fincastle where three replicas of big canons are aimed towards the sea.  The port was built somewhere in 1717 by the first governor of the island, Lord Dunmore, a British officer, to ward off marauders or pirates who wanted to seek provisions and amenities from the island.          

          We passed by the cemetery where Nicole Smith and her son Daniele were buried.  Both  were victims of what forensic doctors claimed to be drug overdose.  Both were US citizens but must have found the tranquil environment in the Bahamas as a natural cure for depression and drug dependence.  But once more, your

NASSAU ISLAND CEMETERY WHERE MS NICOLE AND SON WERE BURIED

environment is what you make of it. It is totally impassionate over your conduct and your  own fault.

         This island nation has her own money and the forex is one Bahamian dollar to one US dollar. If everyone is in the tourism industry, you would  find life easy, but those locals who are not earning from the tourist industry would find the  prices of food and services beyond their reach.   The locals are being priced out and deprived of essential services and food because these items  are being catered to the tourists who can afford them.   We have no data though of the percentage of the locals who are not dependent on tourism.

CONCH (pronounced konk), Empty Shell, Meat Being Sliced

After eating plateful of conch, fish, rice and baked banana and fries,  Andrea dropped us off at the beach the beauty of which is far less magnificent than the beach in my birthplace, the Atulayan in Sagnay where the water is pristine and clear,  the waves calmer and you can see clearly through the water the pebbles on the ocean bed and the fish that glide beautifully underneath, just like the majestic beach of Caramoan.  The flawless seashore of white sand and pebbles in my beach town  is far more beautiful than this Bahamas beach but it is out of reach from most tourists to be of economic value to the country.  The Bahamas, is a famous hideaway of American tourists  because it is about an hour plane ride from the nearest U.S. State of Florida and about 12 hours by cruise ship, or maybe less by lighter boats which can clock more knots than the big cruise ships. 

        Andrea drove Noemi and my wife to the shopping mall, a walking distance from the cruise ship, while we bathe in the ocean  under the searing heat of the sun and have fun. We did some funny stuff on the beach that only a father and his children can be thrilled about.  At my age, I challenged anyone of my kids to swim to the farthest distance of the ocean from the beach, but nobody accepted my challenge fearful perhaps that  I could suffer from exhaustion and heat stroke in the process.        

       At the beach we leased an umbrella and a plastic folding bed for $25.00.  

FAMILY BELOW ONE OF THE CANONS AT FINCASTLE

This beach adventure was an opportunity  to know my daughters and my son once again and it was also a time to reintroduce myself to my daughter-in-law, Aimee and her brother  TJ. The beach swim was a time worth putting in still photos for posterity,  it was an adventure worth reliving and an eternity  highlighted by  a paradox that it was about to end that day.          

        At 4 p.m., Andrea fetched us from the beach.  Because there were more space in the van, she was able to pick up another five passengers from the beach and was paid additional money in the process.  She said earlier that with the $160 dollars we paid, she already made the quota for the day, but you cannot fault her for being enterprising and make more money when there is an opportunity.  She said she has kids that are in school and would  go to Miami to shop for school supplies and clothes for her children because the price of these items were quite expensive in the island.                

JCC aka Jackie Chan

        My two daughters were shocked to find that a gallon of milk in this island costs  $8 while it sells at $1.99 dollars in the US. 

       Back at the ship shortly before 5 p.m. , we took our bath in the cabin showers and off to a diner of steak, fish, chicken, soup, fruits, salad and drinks. Bernice and Anthony were there to assist us with their usual unrestrained smile and glee. 

       Some Filipino crew would greet us in the corridors and were proud to speak Tagalog.  Other non-Filipino crew members would greet us also in halting Tagalog like “kumusta” “sana bumalik kayo”, salamat”.   They were speaking the language to seek your approval as if our approval means so much to them. Suddenly you become proud in the belief that your race could inspire, your language is not an incoherent birdlike chirping, but a language you think might become a major one in the likes of Spanish and French. 

       We skipped the karaoke bar and went to watch the live show at the auditorium after dinner.  The dancing and the singing were of the Las Vegas quality, colorful lights were in the likes of the Sin City too, but there was none of the nudity and pornography of the city. 

         Day two was not over unless we dropped by the casino to try another adventure at the poker table. I lost again but Benjo and TJ just made even. But it was fun.   

  

KAYCEE AT THE BEACH

LOREN, KAYCEE, AIMEE AT NASSAU

NASSAU PORT

7 WINGED HORSES

NASSAU CONDOS SEEN FROM ATLANTIS VERANDA

WATER TOWER

 

Bahamas Diary, Day 3

 

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